


but the ocean is calm

by minxiebutt



Series: short writes [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pairing in chapter title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-08-15 15:48:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 7,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8062348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minxiebutt/pseuds/minxiebutt
Summary: another drabble collection; second year in writing.





	1. veterans: undead titan

Hanji calls it the Undead Titan. 

It turns out that Grisha Jaeger had stashes of the serum, boxes upon boxes, little wooden cases all lined up neatly like stockpiling for The End.

_ “It's worth a shot, isn't it?” _

_ “The brain can live for a time after the heart stops. Isn't that all we need?” _

It was. Somehow.

So they make of their beloved the Undead Titan, a weakly roaring and clumsy bulking creature, too muted in its taste for blood to attack, almost aimless in its existence. It stumbles and stumbles through rubble but it follows the Survey Corps as they retreat. As if in its mindless state, it knows it's loyalties.

The Undead Titan is heavy-footed and uncertain. For a portion of the journey, Levi walks beside the Undead Titan, and the Undead Titan barely keeps pace with him. 

The sun goes down and Levi goes to the Undead Titan, tucks himself into the golden mop of hair, listens to the almost pained breathing, and hopes to be eaten in his sleep.


	2. vets/eruri: 25 cents

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> based on a tumblr post by 2dsheep: "What if SNK was a virtual reality game show and Erwin has just woken up in the studio and is watching Levi unknowingly continuing with the game and Erwin sees how much he is hurting and wants to unplug him from the console and"

**_Game Over. You Are Being Returned To TITAN Industries Laboratory. Thank You For Playing!_ **

 

Erwin always wakes with a shrieking gasp, pulling air into his tense vocal chords so quickly that it squeaks like nails on a chalkboard. Damn! He was so close this time.

“Welcome back,” his father, sitting at the monitors, says without looking. Erwin is still trudging through the after-effects of the game, and he thinks immediately of the NPC version of Mr. Smith, the little easter egg programmed in and accessible only to Erwin.

“How long?” He wheezes, voice beyond gravel.

“Just past two-hundred hours this round.”

Erwin sits back in some satisfaction, until he remembers the ones who’ve come before him. It’s a routine now, the way that Erwin wakes up from the game, and before he can ask, Mr. Smith is supplying the answers. “Mike is at the gym right now but he’ll be back soon. Everyone else is eating dinner. Don’t hold your breath this time. It looks like Levi’s finally decided not to kill himself as soon as you die. I swear, Erwin, the two of you are so dramatic sometimes.”

Erwin smiles at that and closes his eyes.

The game is a wonder of advancement, a neuro-synced system that temporarily rewires the brain, cutting off memories of real life, as if in a dream. The player starts all over, a jolt into ‘consciousness’ in the game as a child, empty-headed like a newborn baby. Something about the deep-thought waves of the brain allow time to pass differently: in those two-hundred hours, Erwin had lived through thirty years of the virtual reality. And, he thought with a smirk, he rather liked the way the game aged him, all strong and stern and golden, rather than who he is in real life.

The teenager sits himself up, shuts off his own IVs. He thinks of the successes this round of the game, and some of the failures. Mike got killed off much early than ever before, as well as his squad, and Erwin wished he could carry his memory into the game every time. He’d never have that team head to Utgard. Mike, when he shows up, laughs.

It can’t be long until Levi wakes up, he thinks, waiting beside his boyfriend, watching the rapid flashing of the monitor overhead. The computers pick out his key decisions and save those video logs, compresses the rest and saves them to his back-up folder. Once everyone either finishes or dies, those key decisions and scenes will be edited together into a compilation. They watch, for fun, to pick fun too, but never to strategise. It’s no use. They won’t remember next time they play.

This round, Nile didn’t join the survey corp, instead marrying the NPC from the tavern and having children as a Military Policeman. It’s disappointing, and Erwin can’t wait for Nile to come back so that he can rip him a new one.

Other players stagger into reality over the next few hours, and as a first, Levi wakes up last. Erwin’s been waiting there, holding his hand, and he smiles. They always find each other in the game, and he wonders if that small bit of reality is carried with him.

“Fuck you,” Levi spits weakly, cracking half a smile. “I should have broken those legs. This round would have been over in a month of game-time.” Levi’s grouchier than usual, and Erwin figures it's the length of time he spent without Erwin by his side. He must’ve gone a year after laying Erwin’s body to rest.

“Let’s get pizza,” Erwin dismisses with a ruffle of Levi’s hair. The other sixteen-year-old swats his hand away, but smiles and agrees anyway.


	3. mikenana: pretty little blonde

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mike x male nanaba

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> does minxie is know how cigars do

  
  


If Mike Zacharias has the windows of his room opened, then he's smoking, and if he's smoking, then there’s a pretty little blonde naked between his legs taking his cock down their pretty little throat.

It's a rarity but a ritual nonetheless. Erwin Smith doesn't always come back from the Capitol with finely wrapped cigars, but he did today, passing one off to Mike like a secret little gift. Mike stays away from the harsh, unrewarding smoke of cigarettes, wants something heavy and tasteful on his tongue, and Erwin knows him well enough to pick out cigars pleasantly favourable for the squad leader.

After the day’s activities are over, mess called then mess cleaned, Mike retires to his broom closet of a private room. He opens the windows, hears the ruckus from the bath house below; green cadets, never seen a Titan in their lives, enjoying the cold well water in the summer heat. When the rush is cleared, he’ll go down to wash alone. Hates bathing with other people, dislikes the smell of too many wet bodies crammed together in the damp wooden shack.

The sunlight has just vanished below the horizon and he's back at his door. He pauses, key in the lock, and he smells it. Wine, a bottle of it consumed, tinged with something of deeper fruitiness and the savoury scent of arousal.

_ Oh, already,  _ he thinks, as if he weren't hinting all afternoon with lingering touches, lingering glances, even his nose to the back of a neck sliding up into blonde curls twice when no one was watching.

Nanaba has his own bunk in a room alongside the rest of the males, but not a word is said of his usually empty bed. Most nights, if not every, he squishes himself between Mike and the wall, liking to fall asleep to the weight and pressure of the arrangement, told Mike once that he felt grounded by it.

The pretty boy is perched in the windowsill when Mike opens the door, twirling the cigar between his nimble fingers. His hair is damp from his own bathing.

“Nana,” Mike greets, double checking the lock on his door once it’s engaged.

Nanaba holds out the cigar to Mike with a knowing smirk. “This why you been eyefucking me all day, eh, squad leader?”

Mike snatches it and nudges him off his perch, taking it for himself. “Get me a light.”

The long-stick matches are in a neat case in his desk, and ever obedient, Nanaba fetches them. Mike has the cigar primed between his lips patiently as it’s struck, waits until the flame burns through the sulfur and into the wood, and then leans forward for Nanaba. He holds it up, waits for it to catch, then extinguishes it between those same nimble fingers while Mike nurtures the smoke.

This whole arrangement is spurred on by the littler blonde and Mike has no qualms. Even now, Nanaba is watching Mike with a deceptively innocent curiosity, as if Nanaba would ask for a sample of the cigar instead of asking to suck his squad leader off while he smokes. His eyes are glued on Mike as he pulls his soft sleeping clothes from his body, and when he’s fully bare, Mike opens his knees in invitation. As if Nanaba needs one.

He pulls the front of Mike’s sleeping pants down just enough to get at his cock, half-hard in anticipation already. Nanaba’s never commented on the size of it, but the way he always wipes his hand across the back of his mouth before he starts says it all. Mike rests his free hand on the back of Nanaba’s head in encouragement, swearing when he’s swallowed entirely in the initial bob. The littler blond only cuts his gaze up, demanding eye contact as he pulls back, the tip of Mike’s cock leaving his mouth with a lewd  _ pop _ .

“Filthy boy, Nana,” Mike praises, knotting his fingers in the curls, blowing out smoke. “Show me what else I taught that mouth to do, my little cocksucker.”

  
  
  



	4. eruri: sie essen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon from that official art that eruri eat together after expeditions because otherwise erwin won't.

Comfort births habit hand-in-hand, and the commander finds himself-- after the  _ unloading _ and the initial reports and the tallying of the survivor count-- ushered back to his room by his captain carrying a tray with two of each, like he wants to shoulder all of Erwin’s own weight but settles for an extra ration of stew and bread. Levi stops and waits patiently at the door for Erwin, while Erwin fumbles-- hands shaking from a body drained of its energy by an adrenaline rush that lasted too long-- but finally unlocks his door.

 

The captain prances-- but not really prances because his own losses are there, on his shoulder, and Erwin will write the report that absolves Levi of that burden-- in like he owns the room, the small, impersonally furnished room with a table and a couch and a bed and the decorative ghosts of a thousand fallen soldiers. 

 

Erwin doesn’t realise that he is standing in the doorway until Levi comes and takes his elbow-- his small hand that delivers both death and mercy, gripping only the fabric of Erwin’s jacket, gripping only the fabric of Erwin’s jacket the way a child grips its mother’s apron wholly in security. Less than a dozen steps and Levi pauses to scoot out Erwin’s chair-- like gentlemen woo their lady love-- waits for Erwin to sit. 

 

Only here and now and alone does Levi ever take a seat at Erwin’s side, moves the spare chair from opposite to beside and settles in until their legs press together and Levi’s elbow on the table nudges against the commander’s own. 

  
Erwin’s hand shakes as he tries to grasp his spoon, Erwin’s hands shake as he lowers it into the bowl and it clatters against the sides, carrying out the tremor, making it known audibly and it brings the bile up Erwin’s throat because it sounds like gear being crushed between the teeth of titans. Levi moves slow when he reaches over, rubs his thumb over Erwin’s wrist. It soothes, and Erwin can bring the spoon to his mouth as long as he has that touch waiting for him. 


	5. rivamika: remains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [listen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTxx5CfeNg8)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my death anxiety comfort jam

“I don’t want carnations,” Levi says and the funeral director makes another mark on their clipboard.

 

“That leaves the roses or the lilies,” Mikasa says beside her husband. “And I can’t dry lilies.”

 

“Roses then,” Levi concedes. 

 

The funeral director looks back down at her clipboard. “The colour options--”

 

“I don’t care for the colour,” Levi interrupts and stands, leans heavily on his cane. Mikasa doesn’t rise with him, not even when he leaves.

 

“White is fine,” Mikasa says. She finishes up the meeting with the funeral director and signs the paperwork, pays the deposit. She’ll see them again several more times before the date six months from now-- it’s like a wedding, really. All this fussing and planning and money for one day, but it’ll be the closing ceremony for her husband’s life instead.

 

Levi is leaning against the car, smoking, when she comes out and down the steps. Other than to decide on what to have for dinner, they don’t talk.

 

“What’ll you do with the roses after you dry them?” Levi asks as Mikasa helps him into the bath tub. He’s too young to be going through this-- his skin is yet to spot and sag and wrinkle with age, even around his eyes where he scowls; Mikasa herself is too young to be a widow, not even a grey hair on her head. But here they are.

 

“Put them in your china cabinet,” she answers plainly. 

 

The next time they’re at the funeral home, the director is prepared for Levi’s surliness. They look at the offerings of burial plots, single spaces.

 

“Actually,” Mikasa says, “what family plots are available?”

 

The director pales for a moment and then shuffles through the folders on her desk for the correct one. In the end, Levi chooses a decent for them, and they opt to have a shared gravestone. His inscription will be done now-- his doctor has already accepted the requested date for the euthanasia, Levi knows when his last sunrise will be-- and Mikasa’s will be added years and years and years from now, they hope.

 

Over breakfast--

 

“Don’t turn into a brat when I die,” Levi says harshly, but it’s morbid playfulness. “None of this ‘consumed by grief’ stuff. I expect you to  _ enjoy _ my life insurance money.”

 

“Maybe I’ll get a terminal disease when I’m forty, too.”

 

“I swear, I will  _ damn _ myself to hell before I let your life get shortened.”

 

Now--

 

Mikasa tries not to let the smile tug at the corner of her mouth. Years, her husband wants her to live years without him. “I’d like to plant daffodil bulbs after the headstone is installed.” 

 

“Of course,” the director agrees. The woman is coming to understand the big picture. Levi will be buried in just a few months, and he will lie, alone, until Mikasa joins him. 


	6. erumika: good morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> erurivamika neko fluff turns into erumika smut

She is sweltering when she wakes up. Blindly, Mikasa tosses back the blankets, but she finds no relief from the heat that is encompassing her body and making her sweat. It’s summer, so of course the air is hot, but she quickly finds the real source of the heat. 

 

Somehow, she’s ended up sandwiched between Erwin and Levi, and her tail flicks in agitation. She hates to be stuck in the middle. Erwin is a furnace at night, and a gropey one at that. He has a tendency to capture the nearest of his mates in his arms and drag them into his chest, like a child embracing their favourite toy. 

 

Sometimes, it’s welcome. The winters can be fierce, and Erwin’s arms are big enough to accommodate both her and their elder mate, Levi, who grumpily pretends to hate being part of the pile. Tonight, however, being caught in the vice of his grip is giving her a headache.

 

Carefully, Mikasa extracts herself. She sits up on the foot of the bed and wipes the sweat from her forehead. Already, Erwin is pawing at the freshly vacated space, and she watches with a smirk as his large hands connect with Levi. Erwin proceeds to scoot his body over to the small man and then drape himself over Levi, going as far to lay his long leg over the two shorter ones. Above their bed, the ceiling fan makes lazy circles.

 

“Get off me,” Levi grumbles, not even fully awake. There’s a faint glow from the cityscape that is leaking through the window, and in the dimness, Mikasa can see Levi’s ears begin to twitch erratically. In response, Erwin only nuzzles closer. Levi slams his tail against the bed and growls. “Get off, you shit stain.”

 

Mikasa smiles. Erwin is a devout snuggler to the point of risking bodily harm, which is exactly what happens. Levi leaves his claws retracted but he gives a nasty backward swipe that makes Erwin startle awake in surprise. 

 

“Hey,” she coos and slides back into the bed next to him, and just like that, he's forgotten about cuddling Levi and is more than happy to drag her against his chest. Despite the heat of it (and the hairs itching her nose because his head is pressed between her breasts) she manages to go back to sleep. 

 

It's several hours later when Levi gets up and proceeds to make as much noise as possible. It's Sunday, so they're all off work, and where Mikasa and Erwin prefer to sleep-in, Levi is insistent on not wasting the day. 

 

“Mika.” Erwin squeezes her once to wake her. 

 

“Mmph,” is her grumbled reply and it stops him for a moment. His face is still in her bosom, and she has her arms wrapped around his neck, her legs also around his waist. 

 

Erwin rolls his hips and his morning wood pokes at the underside of her tush. He whines, “Mikaaa….”

 

She cranes her neck to get a look at his face, and he pulls his lips into a pout, his ears down against his head. 

 

“You're pitiful,” she insults playfully, but pushes her butt down into his groin anyway. Erwin gives her a sleepy smile and cups her cheeks, dragging her head down to kiss her roughly. 

 

“I want to fuck you,” Erwin murmurs against her lips after he's lavished on kisses. 

 

Mikasa hums and with just a little force, rolls Erwin onto his back so that she is straddling his waist. She can feel where the curve of his hard length rests against her ass, which she wiggles to coax a moan from his throat. 

 

“Please, Mikasa.”

 

Maybe later today when she's feeling more sadistic, she’ll bind Erwin up in meter after meter of rope and make him beg shamelessly, but it's still early morning and she has a desire boiling in her gut that she wants to satisfy. Mikasa decides to give him what he wants. 

 

Carefully, she shifts herself so that she's hovering over his groin. She reaches back and grabs his cock-- already out of the front of his boxers, sneaky man-- with her hand and gives it an encouraging pump. With her other hand, she holds the crotch of her underwear aside and in one fluid motion, she nudges Erwin’s head against her opening before sliding down on him. 

 

He groans as he brings his hands to rest on her hips, pleading her to move, and move she does, riding him at first in tantalising strokes that spur on her desire, and then riding him without mercy as she chases her orgasm, only stilling when she tackles her pleasure and every muscle in her body flashes from rigid to slack. Erwin squeezes her hips as she slumps forward with her head against his chest, and then he slowly begins to move his hips in small jerks, rutting up and into her. She lets him work up to his own release this way, smiling to herself when she feels the way he loses his pattern before grunting and spilling his cum inside of her. 

 

“I love you,” he murmurs after he gets his senses back. 

 

Mikasa thinks that he's such an emotional sap sometimes, but she smiles against his skin when she says, “I love you too.”

 


	7. rivamika: remains 2.0

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> short angsty thing inspired by what coco [ wrote ](http://aboutmikasa.tumblr.com/post/157096294074/birthday-gift) for mikasa’s birthday.

Mikasa darts through the rain up the steps of her home before unlocking the door and dashing inside, safe from the downpour. She stands in the foyer dripping for a moment, catching her breath, before she calls out, “I'm home!”

 

Something creaks in the attic, but the empty house offers no other greeting. 

 

Haphazardly, she kicks off her high heels, the stupid things she wears for work to perpetrate the façade of a put-together professional. Next, she sheds her blazer, leaving it on the coat rack so that she will remember to take in for dry cleaning tomorrow before heading to work. No one will mind if she's a few minutes late tomorrow, not with the way she stayed late to pick up the extra slack of everyone else who left early to tend to their significant others for Valentine’s Day. 

 

Mikasa does not do anything special. She heats up a frozen dinner in the microwave and makes two cups of tea-- the same ritual that she has performed every night since he died. The extra cup of tea, she takes to the side of the table that was his before, and she sets it down with a somber, “Just the way you like it, my love.”

 


	8. commander hanji: bottle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: hanji, post-shiganshina breakdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see [tumblr post](http://minxiebutt.tumblr.com/post/158117379933/bottle) for author notes

Another door. Again. 

 

Hanji takes the roster pinned neatly in the wall beside the door and tucks it in the bottom of the stack in her arms. Two more soldiers. Two more letters and two more childless families. There's women starving in these walls, women too thin to have carried a child more than once. Wasteful. Try as they might, Hanji cannot waive the guilt of these ghosts as necessary sacrifices, not when this is all so meaningless.

 

Collect the linens. Fold. Set aside. Collect the chests of belongings. Set aside. Open the window. Don't let your eyes graze the letters on the writing desk, the  _ Dear, _ the  _ Sincerely, _ the  _ With Love, All My Love-- _

 

_ Dear Papa, The Survey Corps will depart on an expedition to reclaim the Wall in Shiganshina tomorrow, but I am afraid--- _

 

Hanji makes a neat stack, cracks open the chest the barest bit and slips those letters inside. Drag the broom over the floor lazy. Leave the door ajar to show that it's handled. 

 

Another door. Again. 

 

Every quarter turn, in need of another hand, realising all these years of more than enough that Hanji, in all reality, only has two of the damned things. Every quarter turn, a request on their lips, a favour, another favour, always something to ask of him--

 

“Moblit, will you--”

 

Another door. Again. 

 

And in the late night, tea does not appear on the corner of their desk just around the time they're feeling a little thirst. Hanji pushes through the mound of papers-- two hands, after all, after years and years of four-- but wakes at dawn, bent over the desk. A sharp crick in the neck. A small price to pay to be alive. 

 

Another door. Again. Another corridor of doors wrought with the quiet of the dead. That night, another without tea, without any help. 

 

The officer’s quarters are final, the third day. Try as they might, Hanji wants that stoic brushing away. Take the roster from pinned beside the door. Collect the linens. Fold. Set aside. Do not bring them to their nose, let it linger. Set aside. Collect the chest of belongings. Do not reach in for his journal. Take his journal out from the chest. Do not open his journal. Set aside. Open the window. Open the journal. Don't let your eyes graze the letters, the  _ Squad Leader Zoe,  _ the  _ Hanji Zoe, _ the--

 

Hanji only has two hands, only two, and they're so used to four, and the weight of the pages is too heavy, laden with the scribbling and candid studies of eyeglasses on the hook of a pointed nose--

 

Moblit is--  _ was _ always good for having a moonshine or two snuggled in his chest, so Hanji opens it and takes the bottle out. Full. 

 

Another door. Again. 

 

Collect the roster. Swig. Collect the linens. Swig. Fold. Swig. Set aside. Swig, swallow down the whole bottle without two extra hands to coax it from their grip. 

 

There's a little bit of bliss in the loneliness for a little bit of time, but as they begin to sober, it sets in. 

 

Everyone is dead in vain. Erwin is dead. Moblit is dead. Levi has disappeared to walls-know-where and if he’s back in the Underground, Hanji will write some bullshit formal discharge. The Corp is hardly even a skeleton and Hanji is the Fourteenth and, likely, Final Commander. They’ve been killing people, all this time they were  _ meant _ to stay within the walls. They were  _ wrong. _ Disbandment. There is nothing more fitting, Hanji cannot carry the torch that Erwin left to them. They are not the man he was. They cannot do what he did. 

 

And it's as if their whole life’s obsession is meaningless. To understand the titans. To fight them. To win freedom. And all along, titans were people-- their own race, a shared heritage, sliced out neatly at the nape and evaporating--

 

Moblit is--  _ was _ always good for having a moonshine or a whiskey or something fermented from potato skins and carrot scraps and apple cores, and with a bit of digging, Hanji seizes another bottle. It's sour, but it is blissful, just for a while, just long enough to untangle the disappointment. A guillotine. A hundred years’ war, a hundred years’ quest for freedom, proposed to be achieved without another soldier’s death. 

 

Twenty years of fighting for the funding and the permission to guarantee their research, and here they are, Commander Zoe, with all the power to grant themselves whatever they desire, but none of the passion. Their whole life’s obsession-- useless-- worthless-- in vain. The titans are their brethren from a different set of walls, just as persecuted and oppressed as they are here, and they've been slaughtering them--

 

Moblit is--  _ was,  _ goddammit,  _ was-- _ good for booze, booze flowing like a well, like the well he shoved them into--

 

Meaningless. Everything. There will never be anything in their life of such importance again. How can Hanji live up to Erwin? How can they even dare to follow in his footsteps? They cannot even collect their sober thoughts long enough for closure, let alone to form a new set of marching orders, not without two-- only two goddamn hands, only two, just two, not four, not the extra pair ever again-- not without two hands strangling a bottleneck and making a sorry swamp of their mind. Bliss. Momentary bliss. That peak of the mountain when their blood is warm and there is a haze, it's calm and cloudy. Everything is meaningless but nothing matters as it is anyway. 

 

If they can just stay in that bliss, if Hanji can just make a noose of that bliss and hang--

  
  
  



	9. eruri: under the table

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more sugar daddy Levi and chubby sugar babe Erwin as seen in [In The Name of the Father](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9709730/chapters/21905423) and [little darling](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10453671)
> 
> original [post](http://minxiebutt.tumblr.com/post/158394053293/under-the-table)

“Say, Levi?”

 

Silver eyes cut across the heavily laden table, across slabs of beef, slices of cake, bottles of alcohol, all the evidence of his fortieth birthday dinner. 

 

It's Pixis leaning in. In truth, he's only invited every year because he gifts fifty year scotch without fail. 

 

“Yes?”

 

“Where's that boy of yours, Erwin, at?”

 

Levi, with his left hand, lifts his wineglass to his mouth to hide the quirk of a smirk. His right hand is buried in blonde locks between his legs and he tightens his fingers before massaging the scalp generously, encouragingly. 

 

“He was a bit mouthy earlier, so he's being punished with no dinner,” Levi explains for the absence of the man nearly half his age. “He's a young thing, still learning to respect his elders.”

 

Erwin is his sugar babe. Pixis knows, everyone at the table knows. Mike’s nostrils flare in sympathy, his own sweet, young piece of ass sitting beside him and looking unaccustomed to the decadence on the table before her. 

 

Between Levi’s legs, safely hidden from view, Erwin sucks his cock in slow, greedy, thorough bobs. Not even to coax an orgasm, but enough to keep him hard. It takes all of his control not to stare down at his boy, those round pink cheeks sucked in, the tear trails from stifled gags. 

 

Pixis sits back in his chair and nods all-too-knowingly. “That's the price you pay, isn't it? Parenting them.”

  
Flashes of Erwin’s thick, bright red bottom, well whipped, dances behind Levi’s eyes and he gives his own nod. ‘Parenting’ isn't the word Levi would use, no matter how sweetly Erwin cries ‘Daddy!’ when he takes what he's given. 


	10. rivamika: training

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for rivamikajam 5, posted on tumblr [ here](http://minxiebutt.tumblr.com/post/159078559758/hey-there-thanks-for-your-prompt-i-have-two)

“Center yourself,” Levi commands. A growl rises from the girl crouching opposite him. “I won't--”

 

“You won't always be here,  _ I know!” _ Mikasa snaps, using her anger to fuel her. She puts her entire momentum behind an uppercut aimed for his jaw that, easily, he dodges, swooping around behind her to put a knee in her back and drive her into the dirt. 

 

“Come on, Mikasa, fight like you mean it. Or are those Sina pigs right about you? Are you better suited to, what was it they wrote this morning? ‘Offer your prowess to the nobles in the interior’?”

 

That's the match that strikes the fire, and only after Levi finds himself prone in the training field does he call time. He's impressed by the progress she has been making since her release from jail, but like he will ever tell her that. 

 

“Next time, don't take so fucking long,” he chastises. 

 

-

  
  
  


Retaking Wall Maria brought the names and faces of the surviving Survey Corps members’ to the forefront of public attention. Being of rare heritage, Levi watched as a less reverent kind of attention poured out on Mikasa, voiding her skill in battle to focus on her looks. During her time in jail, the newspapers painted her as a long-suffering damsel-in-distress. Levi could wrinkle his nose in disgust. 

 

Public attention died down for a little while, the captivation with the titan guillotine replacing it, but as soon as Mikasa and Eren were released from jail, the newspapers dived back into their obsession with her. ‘The East Sea Jewel of the Survey Corps’ they called her. Levi read the newspaper only casually, but it didn't take long for him to see that whenever an article speculating details of Mikasa’s personal life was published, she would score low in trainings that day. For two months, he watched and waited for her to get her head together and stop worrying about the opinions of high society, but when that didn't happen, he decided to step in. 

 

“Ackerman,” he said at breakfast, approaching the table where she ate with Armin. “You're training with me.”

 

“That's unnecessary,” she replied, looking annoyed that he would even suggest it. But when Levi dropped the newspaper on the table in front of her, she cringed.

 

“‘A young woman of her beauty should, perhaps, retire from military service and be courted into marriage’,” Levi quoted from the article with a harsh tone. “I didn't know you were considering it, Ackerman.”

 

“I'm not,” she snapped, though her face remained impassive. 

 

“Then you're training with me,” Levi said. When she opened her mouth with another sharp retort, he cut her off, “That is an order.”

 

Grudgingly, she said, “Yes,  _ sir.” _

 

-

 

Mikasa is a skilled soldier, there's no doubt about that, but under Levi’s tutelage, she becomes even better. The Survey Corp leads expeditions for the purpose of slaying titans now, and slowly, Mikasa rises from ‘the girl worth a hundred soldiers’ to eclipsing Levi as ‘humanity’s strongest.’ He's glad to see another Ackerman taking the title-- his age is catching up to him now, making him ache when it rains in places he didn't even know he injured. 

 

Still, he continues to train Mikasa. It goes from giving her an outlet for her frustration over the attention, to teaching her everything that he knows. Levi feels good about his decision, like he's chosen her for a successor, and he knows that if anyone can carry on where he leaves off, it will be her. 

 


	11. eruri: milkshakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted](http://minxiebutt.tumblr.com/post/159737883803/milkshakes)

This is the closest they will ever get to a date-- fake consolations without barstools between them. 

 

“You’re a great pal,” the barkeep might say when Levi comes to clap his hand on Erwin’s shoulder-- or vice versa-- when he is ‘stood up’ by the woman that was ‘ _ supposed’ _ to meet him there. Levi might just shrug it off and order his poor, ‘brokenhearted  _ friend’  _ something strong, and another for himself.

 

And when they're done drinking away his ‘ _ sorrows’,  _ Levi will make sure his buddy gets home safe, and if he goes through Erwin’s door with him, why, he's just being a good pal, a real helper. 

  
They'll take nice looking girls to the carnival at the end of summer just to make eyes at each other under the fireworks. They'll go dancing with fine ladies and admire the way the other moves their body from afar. They'll be the best men at one another’s convenience marriages and the godfathers to children-- the closest model of a family for them to ever attain. 


	12. nanaba: i'm home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> season two's death scene companion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted](http://minxiebutt.tumblr.com/post/159882971093/im-home)

It's a relief, at first, to be back home. One minute, she's staring into forty moonlit titan eyes, trying desperately to dodge their fingers so she can keep fighting-- the next, she's in her village. 

 

Mike grasps her hand, tugs, and she blinks away the night. It's morning, the air is cool and the sun is bright and her mother is hanging laundry on the drying line behind their house. 

 

“Hey, I'll be right back, okay?” Mike says suddenly. She nods and he smiles down at her from beneath the bushel of his bangs before he turns and runs in the direction of his own home. 

 

“Hey, little berry,” her mother calls like birdsong. “Go fetch Papa for me, please?”

 

“Yes, Mama!”

 

Nanaba skips her way up to the house but as she's reaching for the handle of the door, it swings open, knocking her onto her back in the dusty path. 

 

“You little shit, get outta my way!”

 

She shakes her head, confused, the shadow of her father illuminated in a sky blood red with sunset. “Papa?”

 

Her father comes at her with the shattered end of a bottle and she screams, disbelieving the way the the sharp teeth sink into her thigh and severe away the limb. 

 

“I hate you!” He shouts into her face, whiskey-tainted spit burning her eyes. “I never wanted you!”

 

“Papa, no!” Nanaba flails, hands over head protectively. “Papa, please, I'm sorry!”

 

“You should have never been born!” He grabs her arm and yanks. 

 

Nanaba can feel her shoulder straining to remain in its joint but it gives with a shaking, sickening ‘pop’ that leaves her shrieking so hard that she rips the corners of her mouth open. “Please, Papa, I'm sorry! I won't do it again! Please, stop, please!”

 

“I should have drowned you when you were a baby!”

 

Her father drives the busted end of the bottle into her eyes and she screams until her eardrums burst. 

 

The pain is a gentle throbbing, cotton-fuzzy, when she opens her eyes again. 

 

She's lying by the creek in the forest, in the place where the light cuts through the trees enough for a patch of wild strawberries to grow. Nanaba remembers following Mike on the day that he found this place, claiming that he could smell the fruit. She hadn't believed him until they stumbled upon it. 

 

Nanaba shifts to get a better look, to see if there's blooms on the crowns yet, but big hands settle on her shoulders and coax her back down. 

 

“Easy, easy,” Mike says. She's between his legs, his heartbeat at her back as steady a rhythm as the trickle of the creek. 

 

“I was having a bad dream,” she says, but it doesn't feel like the truth. It feels like she was trapped in a painful lifetime. “I still feel so tired.”

 

Mike presses his mouth to the top of her head. “Rest, Nana.”

 

She does. 

  
  



	13. mixed pairings: one word prompts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tumblr one word prompt writing meme

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eruri, mikenana, rivamika

“ **Dawn + soft” Eruri**

 

If there is anything that Erwin is the master of, it's waffles. There's something about his great-grandmother’s old Kentucky recipe that never fails him, like witchcraft woven into the batter from a memorised chant of ingredients. He gets off work early on a Monday for a change, the house still quiet and dark when he gets back, and Erwin’s craving is growing stronger with the rising sun. He's fishing the final waffle from the iron when he hears his partner’s footfalls on tile.

 

“Your great-grandmother was a witch,” Levi says, enchanting by the softness of the waffles under their crispy skin. 

 

“What does that make me?” Erwin asks innocently. He's the first break in a long line, the firstborn daughter of the firstborn daughter. 

 

Levi eyes him with fond false suspicion. “Untrustworthy.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“ **Glow” Eruri**

 

Standing on the ground, head back, focused, Erwin scores Levi’s first run on the practice course post 23rd Expedition. Bird boned and feline graced, toes pointed like hunting hounds, vicious precision astounding. Looking directly above for another pass, the way the cape flaps and splits the beams of sunlight, to Erwin it appears that Levi’s wings are illuminated. In an instant, Levi swings into the cover of trees again and Erwin swears the sunlight chases, unable to keep up, much like Erwin’s own thoughts. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“ **Frost” eruri**

 

“Snow soon,” Levi says, curling on the couch, his head resting on the cushion, looking out of the window. The night sky illuminated orange with city light polluting it, low and pregnant with a white Christmas. They've just gotten back from the markets, bone-chilled from the biting air, so Erwin brings glühwein for them both. He'd bought Levi several warm drinks while they were out, but the little husband seems to tote along a permanent sense of frost these days. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“ **Warm” Mikenana**

 

Under the covers, they huddle. Mike pulls the eiderdown over their heads and presses his face into the curve where Nanaba’s shoulder slips into neck. 

 

“We're gonna swelter,” Nana murmurs in sleepy haze, even as she wiggles flush against him. 

 

“The fireplace won't burn all night.”

 

“You think the snow will outlast it?”

 

Mike tucks the plush blanket around them gently, chasing out all evidence of the early spring snow storm. They'll be no smothering tonight. 

 

 

 

 

 

“ **Command + Submission” rivamika**

 

“Will you do it?”

 

“Yes, yes, anything,” Levi pleads.

 

“On your knees,” she says through black-painted lips. 

 

He looks up at her like she’s God Incarnate while he is a lowly holy servant, and the muscles of her pelvis clench in anticipation. Mikasa will have him tied up like an autumn pig in ten minutes and thoroughly lashed in twenty, and when the pain is delivered, she’ll open for him the pearly gates and bring him into her heaven. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“ **Envy” rivamika**

 

“Unsightly,” Levi scolds. The sunburn peels from Mikasa’s skin in thin flakes like snowfall. 

 

She sticks her tongue out at him and continues applying a new coat of lotion. “Trust me, I  _ wish _ I could tan as well as you do instead of frying under the sun.”

 

Levi shrugs and rolls his shoulders, already a shade darker from just an afternoon working in the garden. Mikasa had to stay inside today to keep from agitating the redness in her skin and making it worse. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“ **Alone + imagination” rivamika**

 

There. It's easier to chase release on the integrity of one’s own hand, to take a memory, a momentary snapshot and loop it, pair it with the steady _one-two_ rhythm of pumping, _up-down,_ _in-out._ Cumming until cumming dry, or rolling orgasms, or anything, _anything_ to satisfy the blood deep _need_ so visceral, so compulsory, carnal desire a call to be answered above all until they're drained of guilt and filled with only _contentment_.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“ **Melody + hands” Rivamika**

 

They were still living in their parents’ homes when they started fucking, extinguished moans and slowly silent mingling of bodies; when they get an apartment together, they learn to fuck with ruckus. For the first time, they align with loud music, thrusting to the bass, whimpering with the melody, skin on skin and sweat slick sin, sucking one another’s fingers in appreciation because it's good to finally scream in pleasure. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mikasa is always ALWAYS aged up in my written rivamika.


	14. eruri: honey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for eruri of the month, may 2017, "daddy"

Unwanted babies are not an uncommon sight, where Levi comes from. He's seen tiny, stiff bodies swaddled and cold and left in alleyways to rot. Here on the surface, it's a less common sight, so Levi double-takes, stops, and walks down the alley to investigate. He knows these back streets well. Restlessness is no stranger, and strolling late at night helps to push the feeling away for a little bit. The moon is directly overhead, illuminating the narrow slit between the butcher and the cobbler, and nestled in with the trash is a bundle. 

 

As Levi comes closer, he can hear the weak, wet mewls of a hungry baby. His heart quickens in his chest. He's always come to scenes like this too late, but this time the babe still lives, still has hope for life. 

 

The little baby is brand new, still wet with its mother's blood and mucus. Without thinking of the mess, Levi scoops up the infant and coos, awkwardly adjusting to support the weak neck as he cradles it to his chest. He goes down the other end of the alley-- perhaps he will be able to find the one responsible for this, if he hurries. 

 

But when he gets out onto the street, there's no one in any direction. All the houses are shut tight and dark. 

 

Levi knows scarcely anything on newborn care, but he knows they need milk soon or they die. 

 

Survey Corps barracks are along the outer gate of the district and Levi makes it back in just a few minutes. Erwin’s door is still unlocked from when Levi slipped out twenty minutes ago to stroll away his insomnia. He skips lighting a candle so that he doesn't have to put the baby down and shakes Erwin’s shoulder. 

 

“Hey,” he whispers. “Get up.”

 

Erwin mutters a dismissal but Levi shakes him harder. “Erwin, get up. There's a problem.”

 

That seems to rouse the sleeping man and he sighs loudly, “Levi, what's--”

 

He stops short, the foreign sounds of the baby, no doubt. 

 

“Levi?”

 

Erwin gets out of bed and strikes a match to light the candle on his desk. He looks at Levi, a split of mortification and surprise, mouth open. 

 

“It's not mine,” Levi defends quickly. “I found it behind the butcher’s.”

 

Erwin picks up the candle and comes over to get a better look. Carefully, he peels back the flap of the bundle to reveal the infant’s head, and Levi gets his first full view of the child. Sticky black hair and tightly closed eyes, but he can still see traces of a long extinguished bloodline. 

 

“This child is East Sea,” Levi says in shocked understanding. “Erwin.”

 

“I see.” Erwin turns away and puts the candle down so that he can get dressed. “We must find a nurse for the babe quickly.”

 

;;;

 

Being the more social one, Erwin knows which households have recently welcomed a new addition, and he leads Levi door to door in search of a kind soul. They find a woman willing to nurse the abandoned babe alongside her own, and if she's silently judging Levi for the resemblance he bears to the babe, she keeps it to herself. 

 

“We will cover the costs,” Erwin reassures her as they depart. “And after weaning, we will retrieve the child.”

 

;;;

 

Levi sees the child again after a month. Erwin has been faithfully stopping by every evening to inquire of the baby’s health, and Levi thinks he should finally see for himself. However, he doesn't expect the swell in his heartbeat when he lays eyes on the babe in the cradle. 

 

Erwin, more accustomed to handling her than Levi, picks up the baby girl and settles her in the crook of his arm. She's no longer wrinkly and swollen, and Erwin was right, she looks just like Levi. 

 

“What's her name?” Levi asks, peering down at her. 

 

“I haven't thought of one. I’ve been calling her honey,” Erwin says. “You found her. You should decide.”

 

Levi looks from the content and quiet baby up to Erwin. “What?”

 

“Name her,” Erwin says a little more firmly. 

 

“I don't know any good names,” Levi says. “Just keep calling her honey.”

 

Erwin watches Levi speak and nods. “Honey, she is then.”

 

“Honey Smith.” And Levi quickly adds, “I have no last name to give her. She should have one.”

 

Erwin’s looking a little love struck and senseless when he smiles. “Honey Smith.”

 

It's not like they've ever laid in bed and fantasised about having a family, but Erwin quickly goes from calling her ‘the baby’ to ‘Honey’ to ‘my daughter’ and Levi’s stomach does backflips when Erwin dares to say ‘our daughter.’

 

Honey, at six years old, an age at which most children are only just learning to read and write, is a master of the gear, to the surprise of no one, least of all her papas. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU where canon doesn't happen and eruri live happily ever after (also means levi never learns he is an ackerman)


End file.
